


A Portrait of the Werewolf as a Young Man

by proxydialogue



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Gen, alternatively titled: correspondence by a concerned victim of ADD, and instead gets to a heart that looks an awful lot like his own, wherein Stiles attempts to get to the heart of Derek-grouchypants-Hale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-29
Updated: 2012-09-29
Packaged: 2017-11-15 06:48:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/524357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/proxydialogue/pseuds/proxydialogue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An open letter by Stiles Stilinski that isn't actually open so much as it is tucked inside the very bowels of a book entitled <em>Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition</em> which is stuffed inside an old worn backpack and buried in the back of his closet beneath a ratty baby blanket, deceased halloween costumes, and the scattered bones of a Scrabble game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Portrait of the Werewolf as a Young Man

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Scarletjedi and Vialatt for being the most patient betas of all time.

Dear proto-Sourwolf, 

My name is Stiles and I am from the future. Well actually I’m from the now and you’re from the past but it probably doesn’t look that way to you and I’m not about to argue Relativity semantics with a seven-year-old. 

We know each other. In my now we’re like, frenemies, or something. Or two dudes reluctantly stuck on the same side of each other’s wars, I don’t know. We haven’t really met in _your_ now, because in your now I’m four and I don’t pay attention to anything that isn’t exploding, dressed like batman, or has been promised to me as something that might explode or be dressed like batman in the near future. 

Anyway, it’s like this, _wee-baby-Derek_ :

I am on to you. Which is to say that, even though the you I know spends all his time pretending to be the big bad wolf, and he’s kind of an asshole, and he’s got his merit badge in pseudo-illegal creeping and an honorary doctorate in bashing and brooding and his favorite pastime is ‘pin the misdemeanor on the Stiles’; I am so on to both of you. 

Because the you _you_ know, circa 2000, is a kid stuck in the ass end of the 90’s. Which means terrible 90’s music, and 90’s jeans, and those fucking sneakers that light up when you walk. And you are seven, which means being another dork who is always wearing shoes half a size too small because no one ever explains to kids that your toes aren’t actually supposed to touch the ends. It means that when your sister tells you eating too many carrots your will turn your skin orange, you cannot be convinced to eat carrots again for another six weeks. 

It means that you. Are afraid. Of bees. 

And I don’t blame you. Bees are some motherfucking sinister little assholes. 

I bet _The Little Mermaid_ gives you nightmares. I bet you watch _Winnie the Pooh_ like it’s your autobiography and your sister dresses you up in your mother’s jewelry because you have the girliest eyelashes ever (you’re never gonna grow out of the those by the way). Your favorite Pokemon is Pikachu because he’s a little shit, but you tell everyone it’s Charizard so they think you’re cool, you little poser. And when your parents let you have Lucky Charms you save the marshmallows till last and eat them all at once. 

You still think that the national anthem says: _“and to the republic, for Richard Stands,”_ and you keep wondering why, if Richard Stands is so goddamn important, he hasn’t come up in history class yet? 

You don’t mind getting sick because Dimettap is kind of delicious. And one day very soon it’s going to occur to you that the bottle is _right there in the medicine cabinet_ and you don’t have to wait to get sick to have it. And you’re gonna steal it. And drink the whole bottle. And it’s gonna turn you into a hyperactive lunatic and then make you puke purple for the rest of the day. 

You’re also a werewolf, so maybe you like, I don’t know, accidentally eat your grandmother’s canary on a full moon and your parents laugh about it for days but you’re mortified.

You are absolutely, one-hundred percent, determined to become a super sayian. Stick with it, bro. I have seen the hair of future you. You’re getting close. 

You do all the stupid things that all little kids do. Which means that the Derek I know was once the stupid little kid who did them. Which means—

I don’t know what it means. 

It means that everything else you are comes later. Everything that I see, the scowl, the teeth, the rage, the fear (if you think I can’t see _that_ in you, even with my pathetic human eyes—) was learned after ~~the f…~~

After everything else. 

We all act like losing someone is about the person that gets lost. Y’know: There once was a woman named Caren Leigh Stilinski who was beautiful and awesome and actually very much a badass until the cancer ate her brain. But before the cancer she was great. She was _her_. And we’ll all miss her for not being around and being herself anymore. 

That’s the way we pretend it is. 

Actually people are way more self-centered than that. We don’t even talk about it that way. When my dad talks about it he says “I lost my wife.” I say, “I lost my mom.” Losing someone is about the things she used to be to you that you don’t get to have anymore. 

Strong hands that smelled like lilac, picking your stupid, clumsy toddler ass up off the ground. The same hands, digging splinters out of your stupid, clumsy toddler knees. The mouth that called you an idiot when you put hand soap in the dishwasher. The same mouth that never had to say “I forgive you”, because it always was implied. The first number you called when it was four a.m. and raining and you weren’t supposed to be at that party but _someone_ needed to come pick you up. The same number you call when you can’t remember where the secret compartment for the fabric softener is in the washing machine—

and then the phone beeps like hell in your ear and the voice on the other end says, “This number has been disconnected.” 

That’s where the pain comes from. It isn’t because Caren Leigh Stilinski is dead. It’s because my mom is dead. It’s because I don’t get to kiss those hands after they feel my face for a fever. Because I don’t get to hear her cuss up a storm at the oven every time her casserole sets off the fire alarm. Because that fucking number doesn’t work anymore and I can call it all night, no one is coming to get me. 

The weird thing is that, as horrible and self-serving as all this sounds, it means that without the people we love we are nothing. We basically depend on them to be all the things that make us ourselves. I’m Stiles because I have the same attention deficit condition my uncle did when he was young, and I have a soft spot for Buddy Holly because my mom did, and I don’t trust Walmart because my dad thinks they’re some kind of evil, death machine for small businesses. 

We aren’t little individual persons. We are composites of the people who care for us. 

In 2000 you’re seven years old. You know who you are even if you spend half your time pretending to be someone cooler. You’re the stuff of nightmares, but you also believe that there’s time to grow up to be a superhero. You are Werewolf Man. You are Mommy Hale and Daddy Hale. You are Laura. You are a front door painted blue and warm rooms all filled with light and the sounds of beating hearts you know. 

And in 2006 some bitch burns you right to the ground. 

Maybe that’s really where I lose my grip on you. The deconstruction. 

It’s not that I can’t figure you out. It’s that you don’t know who you are. 

~~But ~~~~~~

~~I think there’s still~~

~~You’re not~~

Dude, you _are_ fucking Werewolf Man. And I’m not fooled anymore. 

 

 ~~Lo~~  
Sincerely, 

 

Stiles


End file.
